Sharks sign goalie Antero Niittymaki to two-year contract

File: Sharks' Devin Setoguchi scores a tying goal on Flyers goalie Antero Niittymaki in the third period at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif. on Saturday, October 18, 2008. The San Jose Sharks played the Philadelphia Flyers. (Jim Gensheimer/Mercury News)

Goalie Antero Niittymaki has played 210 games in the NHL for the Philadelphia Flyers and Tampa Bay Lightning.

But it was his performance for Team Finland in the 2006 Olympics that put him on the Sharks' radar screen and eventually helped general manager Doug Wilson decide that Niittymaki was the player he wanted to succeed Evgeni Nabokov as San Jose's top goaltender.

"This is a guy, you know what he's capable of in a pressure situation," Wilson said of Niittymaki, who backstopped Finland to the silver medal that year and was named the Olympic tournament's MVP.

Within two hours of the start of the NHL's annual free-agent frenzy Thursday, Wilson signed Niittymaki, 30, to a two-year, $4 million contract.

While the Sharks gained a goalie, they also lost a center as 30 teams were competing for available talent. After one season in San Jose on a $700,000 contract, Manny Malhotra agreed to a three-year deal with the Vancouver Canucks that will pay him $7.5 million. For now, the Sharks see rookie Logan Couture as Malhotra's replacement on the third line, but Wilson left open the possibility of filling that spot on the depth chart through a future trade.

Thursday, however, the focus was more on the 6-foot-1, 215-pound Niittymaki, who is expected to get the bulk of the work in tandem with Thomas Greiss or Alex Stalock and not carry the heavy load that Nabokov did in recent years.

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Niittymaki — who was 21-18 with a 2.87 goals against average and a .909 save percentage in 49 games with the Lightning last season — was delighted that his agent's phone rang at 9:01 a.m. with Wilson on the line.

"Obviously, when they announced they weren't going to offer Nabokov a new deal, every goalie in the league knew there was an opening," Niittymaki said in a conference call from his home in Finland. "The Sharks being one of the best teams in the league for years now, you hope you'll get the call — and I couldn't be more excited."

In deciding not to bring back Nabokov, who earned $6 million last season, the Sharks were following an NHL trend to invest fewer dollars in goaltending because the big names were not the ones finding success in the postseason. This year, for example, career backups Antti Niemi of Chicago and Michael Leighton of Philadelphia dueled in the Stanley Cup finals.

Finding the next Niemi was on the minds of other general managers as well. Five other teams picked up new goalies Thursday, although Nabokov was not among them — and no team paid more than the Sharks did for Niittymaki.

Wilson's stated reasons for signing Niittymaki (pronounced nih-tih-MA-kee) went beyond both his performance in the 2006 Olympics and his recognition as MVP when he backstopped the Philadelphia Phantoms to the 2005 Calder Cup in the American Hockey League.

"We did a lot of research in the last couple weeks," Wilson said. "We were looking for a certain style of goalie, a certain type of goalie. . . . His stock is exactly what we were looking for."

In describing the style of goaltending the Sharks were seeking, Wilson used the term "blockage" and said it involved "taking away the bottom half of the net and there's different ways of doing that."

Asked if that was more the traditional butterfly style than the hybrid approach used by Nabokov, Wilson nodded.

In describing his own style of play, Niittymaki cited two former Sharks goalies from Finland, Miikka Kiprusoff and Vesa Toskala.

"The style of play is pretty much Kiprusoff's — I think a lot of Finnish goalies, our technique is built the same way," said Niittymaki, who grew up in Turko — Kiprusoff's hometown and where the two still hang out together in the offseason.

Niittymaki was drafted in the sixth round by Philadelphia in 1998. He played in 161 NHL games for the Flyers, where his best season was 2008-09 when he went 15-8 and his worst was 2006-07 when his record was 9-29.

The Sharks will be Niittymaki's third NHL team in three seasons. A free agent one year ago, he signed with Tampa Bay as the backup, then became the starter after a neck injury to Mike Smith.

Niittymaki didn't seem to mind relocating his family once again.

"I was in Tampa last year and missed the playoffs," he explained. "That kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Going to a better team, it feels great."

The Sharks also announced the signing of right wing Cameron Macintyre to a two-year contract. Mac-intyre, a college free agent from Princeton, will receive $600,000 per season.